The miniseries has been inflated from three hours to 10 and the story transplanted from Edinburgh to Detroit. “It’s a pretty fascinating place,” said Englishman Strong, who plays a detective who commits a murder. They’re not trying to solve a murder, they’re trying to “unsolve a murder.”

Detroit can’t be too excited about its portrayal here. “It’s the most interesting First World city I’ve ever been in,” Englishman Lennie James (“The Walking Dead”) said. “We show a cross-section,” Grosse Pointe mansions to the apocalyptic underbelly.

Joanne Ostrow has been watching TV since before "reality" required quotation marks. "Hill Street Blues" was life-changing. If Dickens, Twain or Agatha Christie were alive today, they'd be writing for television. And proud of it.